Midgar Garden
by Aaron B
Summary: A story that takes most  if not all  of the characters from both games and mixes them together. Starts off carefree, but will become much more of a tragedy later on!
1. Prologue

Prologue. Fated Children

Everything was chaos around the small boy. The crowd on all sides jostled him with unseeing ignorance, knocking in all directions, but always driving him forward down the hot, noisy corridor. Just as the boy started developing claustrophobia, the corridor opened out into a wide hall, and the crowd spread out, allowing him a moment's breather, trying to shut out the noise of shouted conversations and a thousand feet battering the wooden floor. He folded his arms, his blue eyes darting around the hall uncomfortably, certain that everyone was looking and laughing at him, with his rucksack, backpack and the cheap, unbranded shirt and shorts that had been all his mother could afford to send him to Midgar Garden in. The hall was a perfect circle located at the top of the school, and the midday sun was streaming in through the glass and iron dome that served as a beautiful ceiling. On the boy's left, a set of stands curved halfway around the wall, and the other students were already busily climbing up them, grabbing the best seats, reserving some for friends and breaking out into occasional scuffles. The last part scared the boy slightly, and he made sure to hurry past any fights, trying his best not to be noticed despite how much he stuck out with his blonde spiky hair and ponytail. He knew he only had himself to blame in truth. What had he expected people to do in a military school? Play hopscotch and skip together? Even so, he chose a seat halfway up the stands, so low that he couldn't see over heads and high enough that he was far from the front row, hoping that no one would want to fight him for the place. He shoved his bags down under his seat, looking down at the centre of the hall and, despite all his nerves and fears, growing excited.

The centre of the hall was surrounded by a ring of thick rope, holding in a thin layer of sand to cushion the falls of those who would soon be fighting inside the simple ring. Today was the first day of the new year at Midgar Garden, the greatest military academy in the world, and that meant one thing to the gathered students. It was the day of the annual demonstration, a fight between the school's two most promising fighters, staged to inspire the flood of new children. The students were almost all present now, aside from a few stragglers, and the noise of their chatter was raising to ever higher levels as they spotted Instructor Hewley taking up his position next to the ring, from where he would referee the fight, watching closely to ensure neither of the combatants fell outside of the boundaries or tried any underhand moves, his hand flying to his gigantic sword when any trouble started. He was a giant of a man, his black hair down to the back of his shoulders and his beard trimmed neatly short. He was one of the instructors that no students dared to defy, and it was easy to work out why when you saw the bulging muscles of his torso, and his sharp black eyes made sure he spotted any wrongdoing almost immediately. These added to the sword nearly as long as he was tall, and very nearly as wide as him made him the most feared teacher at the school. His presence signified more than just authority to the children, however. They knew that his arrival meant that the fight was moments from beginning, and the small boy's heart started to ram into his ribcage as the noise reached fever pitch.

…

As the two combatants stepped onto the battle stage, both wearing their uniform, the crowd began to roar deafeningly loud, watching two of the finest that any garden had raised squaring up. On one side, there was a young man with hair that looked like what it was, a mess of crazy black spikes. He desperately resisted the urge to give his uniform yet another once over, hoping that nothing was out of place. He was one of the students who was proud to wear the blue and yellow colours of the school, and he wanted to set an example to the new students who were sat in the crowd. He did a couple of squats where he stood, trying to look like he was warming up, but really he was working off his nerves, which were sparking and jangling at the number of people watching him. Then he stood up straight, pulling his weapon from it's sheath and falling into a battle stance, his legs spread in a fighting stance. His sword was simple, a curved cross guard protecting his hands and a blade about the length of his arm. He swung it in a circle over his head, bringing it down to face his opponent, a glimmer of light coming from the materia he had equipped in the two slots in the blade and from his unnatural blue eyes.

While he had been preparing, his opponent had been stood casually, his arms folded and his green eyes regarding him with something that looked akin to amusement. Whereas the first boy's uniform was practically symmetrical in it's neatness, this boy seemed to care very little that he was stood before every single one of his peers and instructors. He had the sleeves of his blue school jacket rolled up so far that the garden crest was barely visible, and was wearing the zipper of the jacket so low that his white shirt was visible almost all the way down to his belt. When he noticed that the black haired boy was ready, he pulled his long katana from his belt, letting it hang by his waist in a lazy stance. This blade was just as grotesque in proportions as Instructor Hewley's, but was needle-thin by comparison, barely a few inches wide but just as long, if not longer. The light caught the curve of the weapon as he angled the weapon to point it towards his opponent, flicking his long silver hair over his shoulder so that it fell down to his waist.

There was a moment of eerie silence, as though nobody even dared to breathe in the presence of such deadly fighters. The moment was broken violently, as the silver haired boy darted forward in a blur, his katana slicing downward onto the blade with an echoing clang. The crowd gasped, then started cheering. Most of them hadn't even seen the blade move, such was the silver haired fighter's speed.

Suddenly, they moved again, the dark haired boy pushing the katana away and slicing at his enemy's midriff as he darted backwards. The tip of the blade just managed to slice his shirt open, but the katana wielder had already darted around the blade, bringing the vicious weapon up to slice at his opponent's head. He just managed to duck under it, cringing slightly as he watched the ends of a few hairs floating to the floor as the silver haired boy's blow swung far wide but only slightly off target. The dark haired boy brought his fist up into his opponent's stomach, forcing him backward with a roar of strain, before spinning and bringing his blade in a strong horizontal slash while his opponent was still stumbling. The silver haired boy allowed himself to fall backward, his body almost parallel with the floor, falling underneath the horizontal slash. He gathered a spell from his junction gear, casting an aero spell into the floor beneath him. The spell backfired off the floor of the ring, sending sand whipping away from him and pushing him forward and upward. He used the momentum to lunge at his rival, stabbing his unusually long blade forward. The dark haired boy dodged backward, casting a bolt spell as he did. It was a simple matter for the silver haired boy to deflect the lances of electricity with his blade, but it gave his opponent the distraction he needed to dodge out of his reach. They both stood for a moment, barely out of breath and grinning widely at each other as the crowd carried on shouting for more.

"Not bad, Zack! Maybe they'll let you join SeeD after all!" The silver haired boy called out with a smile as he swung his katana in a flourish, driving the audience wild.

"Oh, I'm sure they'll let me in after I kick your sorry ass, Sephy!" Zack called back, his full face smile on show as normal.

The only person who wasn't enthralled by the incredible display of strength and skill was the only person who wasn't watching. As far as he was concerned, Zack and Sephiroth were just a pair of show offs, and he didn't care which way the fight went. One of them would walk away from this fight with an ego even greater than before, and that was going to annoy him one way or another, seeing as he had no choice but to see them both. He flicked his brown hair out of his eyes, throwing yet another irritated look at the bumpkin sat next to him. All the other students had met his scowling looks and angry brown eyes, and had left the seats around him vacated. This blonde kid had somehow been too self absorbed to notice, and had sat right next to him, and it had been aggravating the boy since.

'He better not be counting on me as his first friend…' He thought taking in the boy's cheap clothes and eager expression fixed on the two fighters. He probably wouldn't last a week…Before he could get any angrier, a clang of metal drew his attention back to the ring. Sephiroth had yet again charged at Zack, flicking sand into the air as his katana raked upward through it in a vertical slash. Zack sidestepped the slice, countering with a one handed slash aimed at Sephiroth's head to distract him from the growing ball of fire in his hand, hoping he wouldn't spot one of the two green stones in his sword glowing as it powered the spell. Just as Sephiroth parried his blow left and readied his katana for a counterattack that would end the fight, Zack thrust his left hand forward, the fireball now larger than Zack's head and spitting little tongues of flame as he struggled to contain it. It shot from his hand like a blistering bolt of lightning, exploding against Sephiroth's chest and flinging him backwards through the air. The silver haired student cursed, driving the end of his long blade deep into floor, driving a deep rut into the wood beneath the sand and bringing him to a sliding halt. Deathly silence reigned in the hall, save for the scuffles of Sephiroth climbing to his feet, a plucking noise as he pulled his sword from the floor a thump as the remains of his shirt and jacket fell from his body, revealing the taught muscles that rested beneath. He looked down, seeing that he had been only inches from falling out of the ring and being disqualified. A smirk lifted his mouth on one side, and he walked back to his starting position with calm confidence, making Zack drop back into his battle stance.

"You should have finished the fight while I was down." He said simply, pulling his sword up into his own fighting stance and taking the fight seriously for the first time, holding the wicked katana at shoulder height, both hands aiming it directly at his opponent. Within a heartbeat, they had met in the middle of the ring, their swords crossed and a cloud of sand rippling away from them, kicked up by the force of their weapons colliding. Zack was no longer smiling. The strained expression on his face, along with the juddering of his arms showed just how hard Sephiroth was pushing in the clash. With a contemptuous smile, Sephiroth sidestepped to the right, whipping his sword down one handed, making Zack stumble forwards. He used this moment of weakness to draw a blizzard spell into his right hand, a halo of blue sparkles dancing around his palm. Zack spun around, holiding his sword in front of his torso to try and block the spell, but Sephiroth was expecting the move. Within a second, the end of his katana darted in under the cross guard of Zack's sword, and flick of his wrist sent the weapon spinning out of Zack's hands. Just as Zack made a desperate dash for the weapon, Sephiroth let the blizzard spell loose, and a boulder of ice flew crashed into Zack's abdomen, shattering into shards that glittered like diamonds as they fell through the air and knocking Zack off his feet and winding him. He had only managed to struggle to his knees when he felt the tip of Sephiroth's sword resting against his neck. He looked up into the green eyes with an irritated scowl, dusting melting shards from his jacket.

"Next time, I will finish you while your down." He grumbled as the audience burst into applause, taking Sephiroth's outstretched hand.

"Thanks for warning me, I'll make sure to not fall over next time." He replied with a grin, making Zack grudgingly grin back. They both turned to face the right hand side of the stands, performing a salute by raising their right hand until it was at shoulder height, it's back facing someone the students in the stands couldn't see. The man they had saluted walked from where he had watched the fight, stood by the sidelines, his hands in his red waistcoat's pockets and with a small smile on his face. The students' cheering halted as they spotted the man, and they waited in respectful silence as he walked up to each of the combatants, shaking both their hands with a little nod of his head. Then he turned to face the rest of the gathered school. He looked more like a grandfather than the Headmaster of the greatest fighting school in the known world, but Cid Kramer was the beloved head teacher and figurehead of Midgar Garden, and it was thanks to him that the school existed in the first place. So despite his diminutive looks, his tidy brown hair, his round glasses and his outdated formal attire, he received more respect and attention than most of the instructors.

"I tell you, almost every time gather you here it seems, that you all have potential. So much of it! Enough natural talent for the entire world! But me always telling you probably gets boring after a while…"

"Damn straight, yo!" A voice yelled from within the audience.

"Thank you for your contribution, Reno." Cid chuckled, "Now where was I…ah yes! I always see the annual demonstration as a better way of dong this! I'm far too old to be flipping around anymore, but these young men have shown you what I always say! This annual display of strength, skill and passion is, in my mind, the best way of showing you all that there truly is a SeeD in all of you!" He finished with an open armed gesture, as though he was readying to embrace all of his precious students. Everyone applauded, even the ones who hadn't been listening. Even the ones who hated school respected Cid . "Now off you go! Curfew starts at ten O'clock, sharp, and lessons start tomorrow at 9. Until then, have fun!" With one last handshake for both Zack and Sephiroth, he set off at a slow pace, his hands behind his back and his eyes scanning the new students with a happy expression.

Zack and Sephiroth lingered on the sand for a moment, looking around in the crowd for the new students, easily visible seeing as they were allowed to flaunt the Garden's strict dress code for one day.

"What do you think to her?" Sephiroth asked with a little smirk, returning his katana to his belt and pointing out a nervous new girl with short blonde hair and brown eyes, who was trying to balance a stack of pamphlets with one hand and read a map with the other in the middle of the surging crowd that was heading for the cafeteria.

"Eh, too much of a tomboy for my taste." Zack replied, taking in her faded blue jeans and white t shirt while returning his sword to it's sheath.

"I meant as a fighter!" Sephiroth replied exasperatedly, letting out a weary sigh with his eyes closed. One of his roommate's many bad habits was his attitude to women…

"Oh. Cannon fodder." Zack corrected simply, watching with amusement as she dropped her leaflets and tore the map simultaneously, drawing a small chuckle from Sephiroth.

"And what about…" Sephiroth started, then stopped when he met the eyes of another student across the room. His eyes narrowed viciously, and his arms folded as he turned to stare him out. As with everyone, he was in uniform, but he was unmistakable. His pointed face was clearly visible thanks to his black hair being pushed so that it swept halfway down his back, his pure black eyes glaring back at Sephiroth. Suddenly, a boy with bright red hair in a rough ponytail popped up next to him out of the crowd, slapping him on the back as a greeting and distracting him from the staring contest.

"Is that the disciplinary committee's new recruit?" Zack asked in disbelief, watching Tseng slapping the redhead around the back of his head for his childish behaviour.

"Probably, Tseng's really scraping the bottom of the barrel by the looks of it." Sephiroth replied with a smirk, watching the rest of the DC surrounding Tseng. A blonde boy with green eyes proceeded to berate the redhead, acting as though he thought he was the leader. A tall, dark skinned boy with short black hair looked on nervously, backing the blonde up with the occasional half comment, keeping one nervous eye on a shorter girl with an eye patch and grey hair, who kept shouting one word insults that carried across the noise of the entire moving mob of students. One boy stood on the edge of the group, his head shaved and wearing a pair of sunglasses, making no noise whatsoever but still watching the others' every move. Tseng started moving away towards one of the two exits from the hall, and the others followed him, remaining loud or silent as they walked.

"Cmon, we should move as well, you need to get changed." Zack said to his roommate, stretching his arms as he walked the opposite way to the crowd, yawning lightly.

"Nope. I can manage a meal without a shirt on." Sephiroth replied, wading into the crowd without looking back.

"I'd rather you didn't." Zack muttered with a scowl, looking uncomfortably at Sephiroth's bare back as he started to follow through the mass of students. "Whoa!" He called, stopping dead in his tracks, much to the chagrin of the people behind him. Sephiroth was already at the hall's exit.

"What?" He shouted back.

"I nearly forgot my little brother!" Zack replied, turning back and looking over a sea of heads to try and spot the younger boy.

"Get a move on!" He heard Sephiroth's urgent shout coming from across the crowd behind him, getting fainter by the second. "I'll save you a spot, but I can't save you a hotdog!"

Where the hell is he? Zack wondered. Then, he felt eyes boring into him, and looked down to see a small blonde boy staring up at him.

"Y-you were am-mazing!" He stammered nervously, looking up with what could only be described as hero worship.

"Er, thanks." Zack mumbled in response a little awkwardly. Then, his expression lightened slightly. What with his crazy spiky hair and cheap clothes, the boy reminded him a lot of himself at that age. Then an idea struck him. "Hey, you didn't happen to see a brown haired boy a bit older than you with blue eyes did you?" The boy nodded enthusiastically in response.

"He's over there!" The boy pointed behind the stands eagerly, his rucksack falling from his shoulder at the sudden jerk.

…

It was uncomfortable behind the stands. Just a load of boxes and pipes and other stuff the janitor's hid there. That didn't matter though. The young boy was determined to stay there sat on a box until his brother gave up searching for him. He was sick of being dragged along everywhere he went, Zack busily trying to get him to socialise with people. He scowled deeply, flicking his brown hair out of his eyes. He would socialise when he wanted to, not when he was told.

Then, the boy saw his brother's spiky black hair popping around a crate. Unfortunately, he moved too quickly for the younger boy to hide.

"So this is your new hidey hole, huh?" Zack said, frowning slightly. When his brother didn't reply, he sighed lightly, sitting down next to him. He instantly turned away, folding his arms. "Hey." He prodded the boy lightly, trying to get him to turn around. He didn't… "Aren't you gonna say anything?" Zack asked, trying to start a conversation.

"How did you find me?" The boy asked, sounding irked.

"A blonde kid showed me where you went." Zack replied, looking a little sad at how his brother was treating him.

'Great! I knew it was a bad idea letting that country kid sit next to me!' The boy raged in his mind, but didn't move an inch in reality.

"Come on, Seph is waiting for us to come eat now." Zack tried.

"I'm not hungry." The boy replied, still not looking at his brother.

"You sure? You don't have to eat, you know? You could just come and meet a few new kids?" Zack tried to coax him, but the boy's scowl darkened. So it was this old argument again? Come and talk to everyone, I'm popular, so you can have some of my friends!

"I'm fine…" He replied flatly, determined to not look into Zack's blue eyes

"You know, you're not gonna have many friends if you spend all your time alone." Zack growled, a little bit of anger showing in his face.

"…whatever." He muttered in response.

"Fine! You know what? I'm gonna let you be lonely from now on!" Zack shouted at him, standing up. "But don't you ever tell me I didn't try to help you, because if you're all on your own in the future, well, that'll be your fault, Squall!" He walked around the corner of the scaffolding without another word.

Squall was glad his brother was gone. He preferred it when people just left him alone…

...

**Well, for all of you reading this for the first time, i hope you enjoyed it! For all of you who have read the old version, i hope you liked the changes i made.**

**Greater description of the Garden and it's inner workings will follow in chapter 2.**


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1. Lessons

The bells throughout Midgar Garden rang in near unison, signalling the beginning of the first lesson of term, and the students in Instructor Valentine's class were quick to fall silent. The new students were watching him with an unmistakable air of nervousness, barely daring to blink as they tried to judge whether or not this teacher would make their lives a misery. Valentine took their constant focus in his stride, in truth he slightly enjoyed it compared to the wavering attentions of the students who had been in his class the previous year as well. He stood up from his chair, walking around his desk to stand in front of the two rows of shared desks, smiling slightly as he took in the new faces. He was well aware that new students could find him imposing, over six feet tall with short jet black hair and obvious strength in the wiry frame he concealed under a shirt and smart trousers. The most threatening thing about him, however, was his eerie crimson coloured eyes, which would quickly flick to any trouble causers and silence them with a glare.

"Good morning, class." He said in his quiet voice, which easily carried to the back of the silent room. As the students replied, he unfolded his arms and turned around, walking up to his whiteboard and starting to write. As his marker pen started to squeak its way through its first line of words, a small head poked around the doorframe, making sure the Instructor's back was turned. The other children watched with a mixture of disbelief and interest as the boy started to try and sneak to his desk. However the boy's luck was against him, and he knew it. In his head, he was cursing the seating plan with every rude word he knew, a surprising list for a fifteen year old. The classroom was laid out with the doorway on the same side as the teacher's desk, and the student's own desk was in the very opposite corner of the room.

"Good morning, Reno." Valentine called over his shoulder, putting the lid on his pen and turning to face the redheaded boy with a slightly amused expression. Reno was anything but amused. He straightened up from his 'stealthy' half crouch and glared at the Instructor. "You can throw me dirty looks from your desk if you must, but you're still getting a late mark. Now sit down." Valentine said firmly, and Reno could tell there would be no point in arguing. He simply smirked, shrugged and slouched nonchalantly across the remainder of the classroom and slumped into his seat, not noticing the frown of the shaven headed boy next to him, who was watching him with masked dislike through dark sunglasses.

This boy took in Reno's shoddy appearance - his shoulder length red hair tied back in a rough ponytail, his crown a mess of rough spikes and his unzipped blazer baring an untucked shirt - and he found himself wondering once again just what the hell Tseng had been thinking when he chose the boy as the latest addition to the Disciplinary Committee. But, as usual, the boy kept his opinions to himself, displaying impressive self-control to say he was barely older Reno himself.

"Rude, aren't you mentoring Reno right now?" Valentine asked, fixing the shaven headed boy with his unusual eyes. Rude turned away from Reno, folded his arms and met the Instructor's look with his covered eyes.

"Yup, ain't he just the luckiest guy in the whole school, yo?" Reno chirped in his high pitched voice, wrapping an arm around Rude and shaking him lightly. Rude's curt nod to the teacher seemed rather redundant after that…

"Then couldn't you have made sure he got here on time?" The Instructor added, ignoring the swift and thoroughly deserved elbow to the stomach Rude dislodged Reno with. "Your little club share a quarters, after all."

Rude stiffened slightly, bristling at the implication that any blame rested with him and less than happy that Valentine had called the Committee a 'club'. "I'm his _mentor_. _Not _an alarm clock." He growled defiantly, his voice prematurely deep and slow.

Valentine frowned, folding his own arms and walking along the row of desks until he was towering right in front of Rude, the young yet tall boy glaring up at him with an air of holding his ground. "Reno will be in lessons on time from now on, or else I will be seeing the _both_ of you in detention, understand?"

A vein pulsed magnificently in Rude's temple, and for a second it seemed like he might finally lose his temper. With a deep breath, he somehow managed to dredge up another load of patience from the seemingly bottomless pit within him and nod in response to the Instructors' ultimatum. Valentine smiled in satisfaction and headed back to the front, knowing all too well that Rude would do anything to keep his school record clean. Apparently, Reno didn't know Rude as well as Valentine did.

"Ain't this great, buddy? We get to spend even _more_ time together, yo!" The redhead said, giving Rude the biggest mischievous grin he could muster. To Reno, this represented his one and only chance to get back at Rude, who had stuck to him like a nagging limpet for the last week.

"Yeah. We'll spend a lot of time together if you land me in detention," Rude growled lowly, cracking his knuckles to cement the threat in his voice. Reno attempted a derisive snort, but it came out more like a panicked choke.

"Now," Valentine said, raising his voice slightly to cut across the chatter that had slowly emerged while his attention had been diverted. "For those of you who don't know me already, I am Instructor Valentine, and this is my class." He said, gesturing at his name on the white board. Beneath it, he had written 'Junctioning and Guardian Forces'.

A brown haired student instantly raised his hand. "Yes?" Valentine asked politely.

"When do we get to be SeeD?" The boy asked, with a confidence that was almost ferocious.

"Not for a long time yet… Nida." Valentine replied with a chuckle, checking for the boy's name on the seating plan he had picked up. "Everyone here has already taken the first step by passing the junior exam, but you still have to pass the theory exam, capture at least one G.F. and then pass the SeeD field exam itself. You're going to have to wait a while I'm afraid."

Nida seemed unsatisfied with the answer, but he had no time to express his opinion, as another new student chose that moment to raise her hand. "Yes?"

"W-what's junctioning?" She asked nervously, flushing profusely beneath her short blonde hair as the entire class had turned their attention on her. Snickering carried from the back of the classroom, and her flush deepened, her brown eyes refusing to meet anyone else's. Valentine scowled over the sea of heads, recognising who had undermined the poor girl's confidence instantly.

"Well, Reno, seeing as you've been in my class for a year already, you should be an expert on junctioning by now. Why don't you answer… Elena's question?" Valentine replied, picking out the girl's name from the seating plan. Reno's face fell comically into horror.

"Erm…it's when you put one of those monster…thingies into your gear…thing, and you can use magic, right, yo?" Almost the entire class started snickering at Reno's drawn out, stumbling answer, which had even drawn a smirk from Rude. "Don't pick on me, yo! I have learning difficulties!" Reno grumbled, glowering at the Instructor.

"Not bothering to show up doesn't count as a learning difficulty, Reno," Valentine replied, shaking his head with a sigh. Forcing a smile onto his face, he turned to the other students. "Can someone else answer the question properly?" He asked, hoping that one of the older students would deign to show some competency. A lone hand was gingerly raised by the boy who sat next to Elena. Another new student…

"Go on." Valentine said, hoping the blonde wasn't about to embarrass himself too badly.

"Junctioning is when you form a connection to a Guardian Force through the use of Junction Gear, allowing you access to a range of abilities including para-magic." The answer started off with slight confidence, but slower and halting as the boy nervously realised that everyone was staring at him in disbelief, including his instructor. Valentine's eyes had slowly widened in shock as the boy had talked, and there was a moment of stunned disbelief before he responded.

"…Correct," He replied, still slightly shell-shocked by the perfect answer. He frowned in suspicion, walking up to the boy while pretending to read the seating plan, but peripherally checking the young student hadn't been reading from hidden notes or a textbook. His doubts were entirely unfounded however. He found the boy's name on the plan, and turned to him, smiling in an intrigued way. "Cloud Strife?" He asked, looking into the blue eyes that had been watching him in near panic.

"Y-yes sir!" Cloud replied breathlessly, trying to smooth his messy crest of blonde spikes (a nervous habit his mother had instilled in him).

"And this is your first year at the school?" Valentine replied with increasing surprise, having found Cloud's nearly blank student file.

"Yes sir! I sat the entry exam in Junon, and they told me I did so well I didn't need to do junior level." He replied quickly, with obvious pride despite his shyness.

"_Pft_, big deal." Reno whispered, shrugging his shoulders and folding his arms, giving Cloud a glare that must have been burning into the back of his head. Valentine rounded on him in an instant, his unusually good hearing picking up his whisper with ease.

"It is a big deal, Reno. Very few students ever get to skip junior year," The Instructor said angrily, raising his voice at Reno for the first time that lesson. "But then again, very few students get held back a year at that level as well." He added, referencing Reno's own humiliating failures.

"It's not my fault that chocobo-head's a nerd, yo!" Reno yelled furiously, absolutely enraged at being embarrassed yet again in front of the other students. There were a few unkind snickers at the remark on Cloud's hairstyle, and Cloud's hands clenched slightly as he nervously tried not to react in any way. The snickers were silenced by Valentine, who drew himself to his full height and swept his glare across the entire class, letting it come to rest on Reno, now looking unsure as to whether his outburst was as good an idea as he had first thought. The teacher crossed the classroom slowly, firmly planting his hands on the boy's desk and leaning towards him.

"I will not tolerate bullying in my classroom, Reno." He said in a voice that was deathly quiet, but was more threatening than any shout the students had ever heard. "Detention. Tonight at five O'clock."

Reno's look of slight fear changed to a defiant sneer as soon as the Valentine's back was turned, and he met Cloud's eyes with evident rage. Cloud broke the eye contact immediately, turning back to the front and focusing desperately on the whiteboard as the Instructor wrote down the year plan in greater detail, bullet pointing individual subjects. Suddenly, a ball of screwed up paper bounced off Cloud's cheek into his lap. Valentine whipped his head round as a few pupils giggled, but Cloud didn't dare say anything. He felt he was in enough trouble without telling tales. He unfurled the paper as soon as he had the chance, with a growing knot of trepidation in his stomach.

'You better watch out nerd. After this lesson, you're dead.'

Cloud gulped, and for the rest of the lesson, his eyes continually darted to the clock, nervously watching his time counting down.

...

"Alright everyone, your time's up," Instructor Hewley said firmly.

The frantic scratching of pens and rustling of paper that had filled the classroom for the last hour gradually subsided almost abruptly, leaving most students to shift in their chairs almost uncomfortably. The silence that would have been ear shattering was disrupted only by the scratch of a solidary pen, the tell-tale signs of a student making last minute additions to his test paper. When the instructor cleared his throat however, the student hastily sat ramrod straight, as though hoping that this sudden switch into good behaviour would get him out of trouble.

Casting a slightly disapproving look towards the student, who's sheepish grin instantly betrayed his guilt, Instructor Hewley ignored Zack in favour of turning a keen eye onto the rest of his students, though he could not hold back the sigh that escaped him almost accidentally. By now he was thoroughly used to Zack's attempts at bending the rules to his advantage (though he would never admit this aloud to anyone who asked him) and simply let it roll off his shoulders as he began to collect the class' theory papers.

He kept a determined poker face as he collected them, trying not to betray any jubilance or disappointment in the flashes of answers he saw before a new paper covered the last. He had to stay professional after all…

When he had placed them in a tidy stack on his rigorously organised desk, he allowed himself a quiet sigh, feeling like he had been holding his breath for the whole, tense hour. Letting a contented smile lift his face, he turned back around to face his students.

"I'll try and have these all marked by tomorrow, but in any case, you will all find out if you're allowed to take the field exam before the weekend starts." A few nervy students, who clearly wanted nothing more than to work off the stress of the exam, took this as their cue to leave, but the instructor held a hand up, signalling them to wait. "Before I let you all go, I just want to say, well done." His voice betrayed the one emotion he allowed his students to see. Pride. "There's not one student here who doesn't deserve to take this exam, and most of the answers I saw were very well informed…"

"Not bad," a student's voice suddenly cut in, "considering we weren't informed at all."

All eyes – including that of the Instructor's – fell onto the culprit, who was sitting languidly in his chair with his feet propped up atop his desk. Hewley recognized the instigator instantly, and was not at all surprised to see the satisfied smirk that had sprawled itself across the teenager's face, his mission at garnering everyone's attention accomplished. The boy's blonde hair was cropped short and slicked back, and he shrugged at the instructor, almost daring him to challenge his words in an attempt to get a rise out of a man he saw as sickeningly stuffy.

"If you had started revising before the summer holidays like I told you to, then a surprise theory test should've been no problem, Seifer," Hewley replied coolly as he fixed the youth a calm stare. He had no intention of breaking eye contact with the arrogant boy, but he also refrained from showing any form of anger. It would be exactly what Seifer wanted, to prove to everyone he could get a rise out of the Instructor, that he could make Hewley lose his cool whenever he liked.

"So you'd say it's _fair_ that we just sat the exam that decides whether or not we get to be SeeD, _without _a warning and at the end of our first month of the year?" Seifer retorted angrily, planting his feet back on the floor and placing his hands on his desk, leaning over it to glare at the instructor. There were murmurs of agreement from a few of his classmates, all who exchanged looks and nodded to each of their peers. Seifer's insinuations seemed to be gaining strength and garnering the support of his classmates, and Hewley knew that was exactly what the teenager was after.

Hewley had encountered students like Seifer before, attention seekers, desperate for the respect and admiration of their peers. But Hewley refused to take up the challenge of his authority, to allow himself to become angry. In fact, he wasn't really. All this proved to be was a slight waste of time, an excess of the youth's energy that was better put to studying and improving his chances of becoming a SeeD. So instead, he let out a small chuckle, because he really was amused at this attempt to unnerve him, before walking along the row of desks until he was standing at Seifer's right. The boy's green eyes followed him suspiciously and his shoulders were squared, probably thinking the instructor irate enough to react with force.

"That's a very good point, Seifer," Hewley responded slowly and patiently as he pretended to be interested in the view afforded to him through the back windows of the classroom. "But I'd like you to imagine for a second that this is the battlefield."

Before Seifer could even ask what the hell his teacher meant, Hewley's hand leapt to the monstrous blade on his back, whipping it down and holding it steady just as the edge touched the back of the blonde boy's neck. He hadn't had the chance to react beyond a slight grunt of shock.

"On the battlefield, you never know what's going to happen, or when _it _will come for you. The _only_ thing you can be certain of, is that if they get the chance, the enemy will kill you or subdue you. You can't be ready simply because you feel like it. You have to be ready at every moment."

Hewley replaced the sword, and started to walk back to the front. "You want warnings? Choose a different career." He added over his shoulder, turning an folding his arms, looking around the other students, glad to see that nobody seemed as keen to agree with Seifer's challenges now.

"Class dismissed." He said abruptly, and with a palpable sense of relief, most of the students started to head for the door. Seifer was the first to leave, shoving others out of his way and practically stomping in rage at having been humiliated in front of the peers he was attempting to impress.

Hewley exhaled, relieved that the lesson was finally over, but feeling a growing sense of dread as he looked at the stack of papers on his desk. This dread came accompanied with the knowledge that he'd be forced to stay up into the night to get them all finished.

"Feeling mellow now, Angeal?" A high pitched voice came from behind him, and suddenly, a hand darted around his side, whipping Zack's paper from the stack and scattering the others everywhere.

"Genesis!" Hewley growled warningly, more than a little annoyed that three of his students had remained in the room. The tall red-headed boy took no notice of his teacher's slight anger, his bright blue eyes scanning the paper in disdain.

"Zack, what did we tell you?" Genesis said, sighing dramatically, before whipping his shoulder length hair out of his eyes to frown at Zack as he held up the paper. It was covered from top to bottom in an untidy scrawl, tiny additions and corrections to answers filling up every single space.

"Screw you…" Zack muttered, grabbing the paper back and looking through it again, fidgeting nervously and plainly wanting nothing more than to get his pen out and start editing again.

"I'll have that," Hewley said firmly, whipping the paper out of Zack's hands before he could give in to temptation. "And Genesis, stop calling me by my first name. You might know me from back in Banora, but here, I'm 'Instructor Hewley'."

"Good luck teaching him any level of manners. I've been trying for as long as I've known him." Sephiroth said, leaning on a desk and smirking at Genesis.

"Since, when did you tell jokes, Sephy?" He replied, grinning devilishly at Sephiroth.

"Since when did I say you can call me 'Sephy'?" Sephiroth said, raising an eyebrow at the nickname.

"You didn't, but I'm too adorable to stay angry with." Genesis replied, shrugging in a throwaway manner and Sephiroth couldn't help smiling in amusement.

"So, we have to wait until tomorrow to see if Zack's failed the theory test yet again?" Sephiroth asked Hewley calmly, privately enjoying the aggravated look on Zack's face.

"I'm afraid so. I'm not going to start acting with favouritism," The Instructor replied, dutifully reorganising his desk.

"Even though we _are_ your favourites?" Genesis asked, earning himself yet another irked look from his instructor. When he just mouthed 'pretty please' in response, Hewley gave him a grudging smile.

"I'm sure you won't have failed again, Zack," He replied, giving the fidgeting boy a kind smile. "But please, if you ever sit the test again, try and _think_ about your answers before you start writing." He turned his attention to the test paper in hand, glaring in slight disdain at the many crossings-out and alterations. "And you two, stop teasing him. Having you both for friends hasn't helped his nerves one bit." He admonished, trying to sound stern, but as usual, watching his warnings go completely over Genesis' and Sephiroth's heads.

"Aww, the teacher's always looking out for his puppy." Genesis jibed with a malicious grin, walking backwards towards the classroom door.

"Stop calling me that!" Zack yelled, running at Genesis, who turned and bolted. The noise of running footsteps, insults and Genesis shouting 'Puppy-puppy-puuuuuuppy!' grew slowly fainter.

"And here's me thinking this would be the year they mature," Sephiroth mumbled, sighing and rubbing his eyes before walking out to find the pair.

Hewley chuckled lightly, wondering how such a difficult and diverse trio had managed to stay firm friends, then gathered his stack of papers and a few other bits of his teaching material from the desk before leaving and locking his classroom with his id card. He looked left and right down the section of the curved corridor he was in, and wasn't surprised to find it totally deserted. He set off briskly from his classroom, passing the bridge that led to the central elevator of the Garden and quickly reaching the staffroom.

"Ah, you're here at last, Instructor Hewley," A lanky, brown haired and moustached man had stood up as soon as Hewley had entered the room, and wasted no time in walking rigidly up to him and offering his hand, giving him a smile as crisp as the brown suits he always wore.

"You've been waiting for me, Instructor Aki?" Hewley replied, shaking the man's hand and putting on a formal voice. He knew better than to behave normally around Aki, who was likely to ignore anyone who didn't treat him with the utmost respect.

"Good lord, no. I have better things to do than wait around for people," the man replied, narrowing his cold grey eyed behind his round spectacles, but the slightly flustered tone in his voice gave away that he wasn't telling the entire truth. "Now, if you'll excuse me." He practically marched out of the room, snapping the door neatly shut in his polite little equivalent of slamming it.

Hewley sighed, turning to look around the room. It was relatively small, with a handful of chairs, which had obviously been dragged there instead of being thrown in the trash, surrounding a battered and scratched wooden table, but as in every room, the walls were white plaster and the floor was a mix of cream coloured tiles. There were only two others in the room.

"Afternoon, Angeal," Instructor Valentine said warmly, looking up from a sheet he had been reading from to give his fellow teacher a weary smile. Sitting next to him was a young girl with her blonde hair tied up aside from two long fringes that framed her face, dressed in what Hewley instantly recognised as her SeeD uniform. A black blouse with blue shoulders, with two wings of golden gilt material hanging down from her shoulders and flanking her maroon tie, worn with a black skirt that reached just above the knee and a pair of knee high boots. She looked up from taking notes and smiled nervously at him through her silver rimmed glasses.

"Afternoon, Vincent," Hewley replied, nodding at the Instructor as he dropped his papers on the table, pulling up a chair. "Care to explain how I annoyed Aki this time?"

"Oh, he was hoping you had some students in detention. I think he's suffering from withdrawal symptoms, seeing as most of these new students have been far too well behaved for him to punish."

"He was going to start giving out additional punishment again?" Hewley replied, shaking his head in slight disbelief. Then, he turned to the girl. "It's been a long time Quistis. I don't think I've seen you since you passed the field exam last year." He said with a reminiscent look, remembering her as a highly talented pupil.

"No sir. I've been very busy," she replied almost nervously, her blue eyes flicking around the room a lot and her hands fiddling with her notes. She was obviously still a little uncomfortable with sitting in a room she had seen from the outside but never entered when she was a student.

"Quistis has been shadowing me for the last couple of weeks. If she carries on learning at the pace she has, we'll have added a fully qualified and very capable instructor to our ranks by the end of the year," Vincent said with a smile. This made Quistis grin shyly, blushing slightly as she looked at her feet. Hewley chuckled pleasantly.

"Well, I won't hold you two up any longer. After all, I have work to do myself," he said, frowning down at the pile of papers, before finally pulling them over and starting to mark the first of them.

"Right… now where were we?" Vincent asked, looking a little lost as he tried to find where he had stopped reading before.

"We just finished talking about controlling trouble causers, and I think you said we were talking about dealing with bullying next?" Quistis replied, consulting her notes with an air of organisation that Vincent couldn't help but envy.

"Hmm, highly appropriate…" Vincent muttered moodily, thinking out loud, dwelling on what had quickly become a massive problem in his lessons in the past few weeks.

"Is something wrong, sir?" Quistis asked with a concerned look, making Vincent shake away his thoughts and force a smile onto his face.

"I'm sorry, it's just been a long day." He replied, garnering himself a sympathetic smile from his protégée, before she turned back to her notes, awaiting his dictation.

"So…bullying." Vincent said, unable to help the slight bitterness entering his voice when he read the heading out loud.

...

With a pathetic whimper, Cloud sank to his knees, a mixture of blood and drool trickling down from his mouth and dripping from his chin.

"You want to be more careful," Rude muttered, leaning against the wall behind the stands in the main hall. He watched as Reno pulled the younger boy up onto his feet by the scruff of his neck and smirked as Cloud dazedly tried to remain standing.

"Nah, he'll be fine, won't ya, Chocobo head?" Reno said ruffling the boy's blonde hair. Cloud didn't reply and just carried on taking in painful gasps of air. "Don't ignore me, yo!" Reno bellowed, pulling his fist back and burying it in Cloud's ribs yet again. That got him talking.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" Cloud pleaded, bent over double in agony. "I gave you my homework, just like you asked!"

"That's where you're wrong, little buddy!" Reno replied, sounding chirpy as he grabbed a handful of the boy's hair and uppercut punched him, swinging his full body into the blow. Cloud landed flat on his back, his hands over his now broken nose. Reno shook the few strands of hair that had ripped from the boy's head onto the floor, kneeling next to him and scowling down at him as tears started to roll down his eyes. "Y'see, what you gave me was a perfect piece of homework. Sure, it was typed out like I said, but what d'you think'll happen if I hand in some word perfect piece of crap that _you've_ obviously written, yo?" Reno was talking in the same way he always did during these beatings, mockingly happy and patronisingly, milking the one year in age that separated the two boys for all that it was worth.

"Y-you'll get in trouble?" Cloud answered hurriedly, slightly muffled by his hands and hoping to avoid further pain with a quick response.

"Exactly!" Reno replied brightly, talking to him like a dog that had just jumped through a hoop, then standing up and stomping on his chest just for the sake of it. Cloud howled in pain and flopped on his side, openly crying as he laid against the cold floor now.

"You're not listening to me," Rude growled quietly.

"Also true!" Reno said sarcastically, turning and grinning at his 'mentor' to irritate him.

"You won't be laughing when you get expelled," Rude replied, meeting his look with his usual disapproving frown.

"That's what you think buddy…" Reno mumbled in an undertone, turning back to Cloud. "And besides, Cloud knows exactly what to tell anyone who asks him, don't ya, yo?" He added, raising his voice and planting his foot on Cloud's chest, pressing down hard. "You went for another look around the training centre, and walked right into a T-Rexaur, right?"

"I…I don't know!" Cloud yelled tearfully, grabbing at Reno's foot and trying to throw it off.

"Wrong answer, yo!" Reno growled, standing up and viciously kicking at the boy's side and stomach, spitting curses at him with each kick. He only stopped when a hand grasped his upper arm. "Fuck you, Rude, I'm not stop…"

The cocky redhead's rebuttal was interrupted suddenly and harshly as he was thrown backwards away from Cloud, slamming painfully against the wall and sliding down onto the floor. Just as he made to leap to his feet, a boot firmly planted into his chest, holding him against the wall and digging into his ribs painfully. He looked up the body it belonged to, meeting a pair of green eyes that nearly made his heart stop.

"Explain yourselves." Though Sephiroth spoke sharply, the threat in his voice was amplified a thousand times by the his wicked blade, the Masamune, which he had just rested against Reno's neck, his other hand clenched harshly around Rude's neck. Reno looked at Rude in a blind panic, begging him for guidance, but he could barely even manage a splutter past the vice like fingers that held him in place. The silver haired boy was glaring with unbelievable amounts of venom at Reno, and just as his hand clenched worryingly on the Masamune's hilt, a voice broke the tense moment.

"I believe that's _my _idiot you're assaulting, Sephiroth."

The clipped tones made the student's head whip to the left, and he visibly tensed at what he saw. The rest of the Disciplinary Committee was stood blocking their way out, Tseng stood at the very front and centre, his disapproval of everything before him displayed clearly on his face. With a snap of his fingers, he called Reno and Rude to his side, and they hurried to obey, Reno practically scampering on all fours as he came up from the floor. Sephiroth had let them loose, whipping his blade up to shoulder height as he came into his battle stance, bigger worries on his mind than holding down Rude and Reno.

"Well, maybe if he hadn't been bullying this kid, I wouldn't have had to step in? I thought your little group was here to _stop_ rule-breaking?" Sephiroth replied in a rigid voice, his eyes on Tseng, but secretly, he watched the other members of the Disciplinary Committee, looking out for any signs of a surprise attack. He was fairly certain he was the most skilled student in Garden, but he also knew he was badly outnumbered...

"That sounds like an accusation to me!" Seifer yelled angrily, starting forward and pulling an oddly shaped blade from his belt. Tseng only just got his arm in front of him, seeing as Seifer had been almost directly at his side anyhow, but the warning look he gave his subordinate put him quickly back in his place.

"In any case, I would be interested to hear _exactly_ what proof you have that _either_ of my members have harmed this boy in any way," Tseng said, now letting his unblinking eyes fall on Cloud. "From what they've told me, he's a pretty sad case...goes wandering in the training centre despite many warnings not to, gets injured by the creatures there, then every now and then, comes up here when he can't handle any more."

Sephiroth's hand's would have snapped a lesser blade in two as his grip tightened, his anger building as Tseng invented an alibi before his very eyes. "In fact, I sent a couple of my trusted members to make sure he was ok, isn't that right?" He asked, turning to look at the others.

"TRUE!" Fujin yelled, her one eye watching Sephiroth with wariness equal to his, one thumb stroking across her chakram as her instincts urged her to draw it.

"Yeah, that's true, ya know?" Raijin added, the lumbering, dark skinned giant following Fujin's lead as usual. Without warning, a blast of lightning leapt across the space between them, headed right for Tseng's face. A barrier spell was cast in its path by Seifer just in time. Tseng didn't even blink. Sephiroth retracted his casting hand, returning to his stance with fury gleaming in his cold green eyes.

"Well, it seems someone has to be taught a lesson in obedience," Tseng said laxly, pulling leather gloves taut over his hands, and the entire committee followed suit, readying their weapons to rush their deadly opponent.

"Good luck teaching him to behave."

Now it was Tseng's turn to whip around, and he spied the new company as they travelled down the hallway to their location. "I've been trying as long as I've known him," Genesis finished with a smug grin on his face, parodying Sephiroth's own comment from the previous day, drawing an amused smirk from the silver haired student.

"Need some help, Seph?" Zack yelled over the heads of the Committee, drawing his sword, wheeling it over his head, then sinking into his battle crouch next to Genesis, who had drawn a dark red longsword and was now drawing fire magic from his junction gear, readying himself to cast.

"I wouldn't say no," Sephiroth replied, visibly relaxed now he had back up. There was a moment where the Committee members seemed undecided, still itching to fight, but far less fond of their odds now two more very capable fighters had shown up. The moment was finally and predictably broken by Reno, who threw down his Electro-Mag Rod, climbed the back of the stands and then sprinted down the seats and out of the hall in a blind panic.

"...Back to the dorm," Tseng said, rubbing his eyes after a drawn out sigh. Then he turned and headed for the exit as if there wasn't anyone else there, like this whole encounter hadn't detered him in the slightest bit. One by one, the rest of the Disciplinary Committee followed his lead, leaving Seifer as the last one to disappear from the halls, though not before giving the interloping trio one last growl of frustration as he did so.

"And _you _say we're good for nothing," Genesis said with a grin, walking up to Sephiroth with a bounce in his step.

"You get a real kick out of annoying Tseng, don't you?" Sephiroth replied, having noted the younger boy's cheerfulness.

"The best things in life are always free," he said with a throwaway shrug.

"Are you ok?" Zack asked Cloud, kneeling down next to the boy. In the rush of events, Sephiroth had forgotten him entirely. The blonde was still slightly shell shocked, having just seen both of his idols come and scare away his bully. Even his dreams weren't this unreal!

"I...I'm fine!" He replied breathlessly, having decided at last that Zack wasn't just a figment of his imagination.

"Are you sure?" Zack said in disbelief, looking at the boys blood coated clothes and broken nose.

"Yeah, i've had worse than thi-OW!" Cloud yelped, having tried to brush off Zack's concerns in a vague attempt to seem cool. He had barely sat up when his ribs had throbbed horribly, forcing him back onto his back, biting his lip, which caused a twinge of pain to shoot up his nose and behind his eyes.

"Whoa, sit still, I think he might have broken more than just your nose," Zack said firmly with concern on his face, holding Cloud's shoulder before he could attempt it again.

"Aww, you're not used to getting hurt like this, are you?" Genesis said, sounding a little sad, kneeling at Cloud's other side. The blonde boy reluctantly admitted with a nod of his head. Suddenly, an arm had swooped over Genesis' shoulder, snapped the boy's nose back into place and, before he could even yelp, cast a sparkling aura of green magic across his body, nullifying all his aches and pains in a blissful instant. The boy's eyes still watered slightly as his hand rubbed his newly repaired nose in shock.

"I didn't want to give you time to worry about it," Sephiroth said simply to Cloud, meeting a reproachful look from Genesis with a questioning one.

"Just don't ever heal me, okay?" The red head said eventually, looking a little mad that he had caused the blonde more pain.

"I wouldn't waste the energy." Sephiroth scoffed, drawing a glare from Genesis as he gingerly helped Cloud to his feet.

"How dyou feel?" Zack asked Cloud with a nervous look, as though he expected the boy to drop to the ground again any second. Cloud took a few steps, then, stretched his arms to his sides and over his head, then turned around beaming.

"I feel great!" He replied happily. Then, his mother's face jumped into his mind's eye, and he realised he had forgotten his manners entirely. "Th-thank you, Mr. Sephiroth!" He said hastily, drawing a bemused look from the silver haired student.

"Awwww! He's so _cute!_" Genesis chirped, walking around Cloud and placing his hands on the boy's shoulders, looking at Sephiroth over his messy blonde spikes. "Can we keep him?" He pleaded, giving the other two his 'puppy dog eyes' despite his age.

"Don't look at me," Sephiroth said with a shrug, already heading for the exit.

"Ignore him," Zack said, giving Sephiroth a glare over his shoulder, then turning to look back at Cloud, a freindly smile on his face. "D'you want to hang around with us for a while? At least until Reno gets the message to leave you alone?"

"Th-that'd be g-great, Mr. Zack!" Cloud replied hastily, his grin now positively beaming.

"That's settled then! Seeya at dinner, Blondie!" Genesis said with an equally large grin, ruffling the boy's hair playfully before heading off after Sephiroth.

"What's your name then?" Zack asked with a smile, deciding against calling him 'Blondie', as they too headed for the exit.

"Cloud, Cloud Strife, Mr. Zack." He replied, positively lightheaded at the fact that his first friends in his new school were his biggest heros.

"...Cloud, please call me 'Zack'..."


End file.
